Icarus
by Rydia Highwind
Summary: His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but he didn't listen... Liquid and Solid's places are reversed. AU, implied yaoi (LiqSol. Sort of.)


Title: Icarus  
Author: Rydia Highwind  
Pairing: Liquid/Solid  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Metal Gear Solid and all characters from it belong to Hideo Kojima and Konami. Which I love them for.  
Summary: His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but he didn't listen... Liquid and Solid's places are reversed.

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**Icarus**  
_it is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty_

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Upon waking up, he was struck with the realization of two very separate and yet very important things. The first was that he could not see, even when he opened his eyes, and the second was that he did not remember falling asleep. 

It would come only later that he realized he was in a very unnatural position to have fallen asleep in, even in the most drunken debauchery imaginable. He didn't always like to admit it, of course, but he knew what it was like to wake up the morning after such an incident, and really, this was nothing like that. His head was pounding, but it was a very centered ache, in one place, rather than the generalized ache that he usually associated with a hangover. In fact, he couldn't really remember exactly what he had been doing before this. And he'd never woken up unable to see before. 

The lack of sight was what worried him first and foremost, though. He wasn't entirely sure where he was, if it was too dark to see or if he just couldn't see at all. He was a specialist in infiltration and a pilot, and seeing was a very important part of his job. He didn't know where he was, and his enemy had every advantage. He needed to figure out where he was, why he couldn't see, and why his head hurt. The last of those was making it hard to think. He moved to reach his hands up to rub his head and found another important factor in his predicament. 

His hands were bound, crossed at the wrist, behind his back. He was sitting up, he realized, his legs crossed in front of him, the position of his arms counterbalancing the weight of his upper body and keeping him upright. 

Frowning, he moved his head around experimentally. There was a brush of fabric along his back. A blindfold? That would explain why he could not see, and it would make sense along with his bound wrists. Someone was holding him as a prisoner of some sort. His captor had presumably knocked him out somehow, explaining his headache. But who would take him captive? What could anyone possibly want out of him? He was just a lonely military man, serving in the British air force. The only thing he could think of was that someone found out about the years he'd spent in the SIS and thought he may have retained something of value there. 

Of course he had secrets, but everyone did. There were some issues he had dealt with in the SIS that might pit someone after him, but for the most part, he had taken care of the dirty wetworks that had gone on then. The secret service had been good to him, helped him keep out of trouble after he retired early. After the unfortunate incident in Zanzibar Land, a joint venture with the United States' own FOXHOUND, he had asked for retirement and instead found himself recruited into the SAS to carry out his dream of being a pilot. He had all but forgotten those days until now. 

There was a whisper of wind in the room, and he realized that he was not alone. He did not move, only waited. The footsteps were barely perceptible, and only that much because the entire rest of the room was immersed in silence. 

"So. You're awake, huh?" 

The voice was deep, masculine, gravelly from what sounded like years of smoking, laced with a distinctive American accent. It came from somewhere to his right, and he fought the urge to turn and look since the effort would be wasted anyway. It sounded vaguely familiar to him, as though he had heard it or something like it a very long time ago, but he couldn't recall where. He racked his memory, searching for the owner of the voice to try and figure out why he had been kidnapped. 

There was a hand on his chin then, warm and surprisingly gentle as it turned his head to the side. He said nothing in reply, since the answer was obvious. "How's your head?" the other man said then, and he could feel fingers in his hair around the area that hurt the most. He turned his head slightly, trying to pull away from the offending fingers. The probing hadn't hurt too much, but he didn't even know whom he was dealing with or why he was here. 

"Who are you?" he demanded then, feeling ridiculous and a bit surreal. It was straight out of the cinema, this situation. He had been kidnapped by a mysterious person and now was demanding to know who that person was. He was in no position to demand anything. 

The voice laughed then, no doubt appreciating the same bit of surrealism as his captive. The hands, at least, were no longer on him. "Liquid Snake," the American said, not giving his own name, but the codename of the man he'd kidnapped. "Such a strange codename, even for the Brits. Did you ever wonder how you got such a name? Did you ever think maybe there's a reason for it?" 

A frown, then. The "snake" codename was nothing to be laughed at; it wasn't even really his, but an honorary title given to him after the fall of Zanzibar Land, along with an invitation to work for the United States' elite Special Forces league, FOXHOUND. As a result of this, the SAS forces had offered him the same codename for his role with them. He'd accepted only because the nickname of 'Snake' had already stuck with him. "What are you talking about? Answer me, who are you?" 

Hands reached up, then, around behind his head, and he felt the blindfold coming undone. The brightness from the room flooded his eyes as they were exposed, and he was forced to wince them closed. When he was finally able to open them, allowing them to quickly adjust to the abrupt change in the lighting, he saw a sight that made him gasp in surprise before he could stop himself. 

The man kneeling in front of him was staring back at him with the exact same face. The captor's hair was a dark brown, pulled back in a short ponytail, and his eyes were a piercing light green, but aside from that, he was Liquid's perfect double. 

"I'm you," the man said, looking angry and somewhat disgusted. "I'm your shadow. Solid Snake." He reached out, pointed at his captive. "The only reason _you're_ Liquid is because _I_ was Solid first. You stole everything from me, my name, my rank, my position, my father. You took everything I did, and you did it _better_. And you don't even know who I am, do you? Of course not. They didn't tell you anything. The only reason I know is because Father told me, over and over and over. And now he's dead, so it's left with you and me." 

The resemblance was so close that the two of them had to be brothers, if not twins. Liquid knew nothing of his family, save that his father was the late Big Boss. Why _shouldn't_ he have a twin? "All right, so we're brothers then?" he replied, attempting to be reasonable. The man in front of him was clearly insane with anger, but perhaps he could be calmed. Liquid was in no position to be bargaining, tied up and unsure even of where he was, but what else could he do? "Twins, I would guess, the resemblance is uncanny." 

The other man snorted derisively. "Nice deduction skills, Sherlock," he said cynically. 

"I can think of nicer ways to stage a family reunion," the captive replied, tugging experimentally at his bonds cuffing his wrists. "What do you want from me?" 

"I want you to die miserably, after knowing the hell I went through every single day because of you." Solid Snake's voice was low with anger, green eyes narrow with hatred. "I want you to taste defeat as I prove to you that I really _can_ do something better than you can. I want you to bleed, to call out to me and beg me to stop because you can't _handle_ it any longer." 

"Torture, then?" The first man shrugged imperceptibly. "I was captive for two years in Iraq, without the benefit of the Geneva Convention. I doubt you'll be able to match that. Really now." 

There was a flash of motion, and he was suddenly pinned to the wall a few feet behind where he had been seated, his captor angry and holding him there by the neck. He was still seated, somewhat, and the man holding him was kneeling, one hand in an iron grip at his neck, holding him up by the jaw. "You know," Solid growled, hissing in anger, "I was going to untie you, fight with you hand to hand to see who really was the better man. But now...no. I think I should show you the kind of torture that _I_ had to live through. And see if you can handle _that_." 

"And you'll prove your superiority by killing a defenseless man? I'm not sure what that will prove, honestly," he replied, appearing nonplussed. Solid apparently had some sort of inferiority complex, and that might be exploited somehow. 

Solid was giving him a look he couldn't define somehow, and a hand came up then to carefully touch his face. It was a strange feeling, pinned against a wall by the throat and the opposite hand of the same person touching him almost sensually. He shivered as his brother began to speak. "That's not it at all. Superiority isn't the issue, we're equals. I need to prove that I _can_ kill you. I used to be in FOXHOUND, you see, back before you killed Big Boss. He was insane, he wanted to die, and he wanted me to kill him. That's why he set up Outer Heaven. I was the one he sent in. I destroyed his Metal Gear and blew up his fortress. But I couldn't kill him. I had him on the ground bleeding, with my gun to his forehead, and I couldn't kill him. 

"He never forgave me for that. He brought me with him after that, to Zanzibar Land, and every day he told me how he had raised me to do one thing and I had failed him. And he told me that you would succeed where I had failed, just like you always damn well did...and he was right. You were able to kill your own father without a problem, while I simply watched, unable to decide which of you I should help. I hated him, just as much as I hate you. And I'm going to kill you because of that." 

"You're insane." It was the only thing Liquid could think of to say to all of that. 

Solid was so close that he could feel the man's breath on his face. One hand was still against his throat, and the other now stroking his blond hair trailing into one eye. "I know," the man whispered. "And it's your fault. I'm obsessed with you. I haven't stopped thinking about you and how much I hate you in six years. Six goddamn years, Liquid Snake. Six years, I've thought day in and day out about this moment. And now that I've got you..." 

Liquid waited, but his twin did not continue. There was silence between them then, and he found that he wasn't as repulsed or frightened as he should have been. There was simply the lack of emotion that had accompanied him when he had finally killed Big Boss. 

A finger stroked his jaw, and he shivered in response. 

"...what should I do with you?" And the glint in Solid's eye told him everything. 


End file.
